Steve Bailey

“So Low……..Solo”
www.stevebaileybass.com

Man.  I’m impressed.  We all know Steve can play, but this is by far, my favorite recording of Steve to date.  This CD is pure solo bass (no overdubs or loops) with some wonderful and unobtrusive percussion by Robert Thomas, Jr. (Weather Report).  It’s hard to believe that the pieces were all performed by Steve alone with no overdubs and even harder to imagine how he managed to get such wonderful and emotive takes doing it on a fretless bass!
Steve’s compositions are lush and his tone is just beautiful.  I generally have a short attention span for solo bass CDs (sorry guys!  I still love you all and am amazed at what you do….) but I listened to this recording in it’s entirety (twice) and never got bored!  The music never feels compromised by the “no overdub” rule.  The bass work is solid and creative and the chordal/melodic work is as effective, articulate, heartfelt (and in TUNE a magical amount of the time).  This could just as easily have been recorded by two or three guys and I’d be just as happy.  Many solo CDs I’ve heard are impressive because of the technical and acrobatic mastery required to pull it off…..but it isn’t always very much fun to LISTEN to (for me at least), but Steve Bailey has managed to be both awe inspiring in his technical abilities and his ability to provide us with beautiful music.